


Set Apart This Dream

by kawada_s



Category: Battle Royale - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 16:40:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10139045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kawada_s/pseuds/kawada_s
Summary: Mitsuko and Noriko grow up vastly different girls. AU/Non-Program.





	

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from the song 'set apart this dream' by flyleaf.

Set Apart This Dream

Even though she’s only six, Mitsuko already well and truly knows what it’s like to be and feel alone.

She’s at the park again, for the fifth day in a row now, across from the school she’ll be starting in a while. Her mother wanted to be alone, she said, and her father wasn’t around to stop her from pushing her out of the house and onto the street to just roam around for a few hours. He’s at work, as he always seems to be nowadays, and sometimes, it feels like he’ll be there forever. She misses him, but tries to tell herself that he’ll be back soon. Hopefully, he’ll be early today, and she won’t have to stay out her much longer.

There’s quite a few children in the park with her, running around, laughing and smiling, occasionally running back to their families. Mitsuko sits off to the side, on the only unoccupied bench, the one furthest away from the people, kicking her feet. The children travel in packs, she’s observed in these few days, and it didn’t take her long to learn she wasn’t part of one. That she wasn’t welcome.

It’s easier to sit alone now, and just wait. It’s better than trying to approach a girl and her friends and ask if she can play with them, only to have them walk away, or have their families call out to them to come over to them, to save her from her, as if she’s diseased. It isn’t fair, but what can she do?

Someone taps her on the shoulder, and for the first time, she looks away from the crowd of people, wondering if her father has come surprisingly early to collect her. At first, she’s disappointed when she only sees a girl there, looking around the same age as her, in a yellow sundress and a small smile on her face, but she quickly recovers, and shoots her back a smile. _Someone wants to talk to me._

“Hi,” the girl gives Mitsuko another smile. She’s pretty. She’s maybe even the prettiest girl she’s ever seen – she looks like a princess. She used to think her mother was the prettiest girl in the world, but then she realised she wasn’t pretty at all. Not _really._ “Are you okay? You looked lonely.”

“I’m okay,” Mitsuko shrugs. It isn’t a lie, she figures. She’s used to being alone. The only person she really talks to is her father these days, when he’s around, when he picks her up from the park and when he’s not too tired. He used to read her stories before she went to bed, before he started working so much and got so tired, but those days are over, it seems. She tries not to think about it, and instead focus on the new friend she might be making.

“That’s good,” the girl nods at her. She holds out a few small flowers she plucked from the ground when her mother wasn’t looking, planning to take them home with her and place them by her bed, but she thinks she might need them more than she does. “Would you like these?”

Mitsuko is surprised, but eventually nods, not wanting her to think she doesn’t want them. It’s the first time anyone has given her anything in a very long time. She looks down at her boots, much too small and uncomfortable, thinking of how she was going to ask for new ones a few days ago and figuring it was a bad idea, and thinks that she’d rather have the flowers instead. It’s a small thing, such a small thing. The petals are dirty, some missing, and they aren’t even that pretty, but she takes no notice of that. They’re the best thing she has in the world.

It’s enough to make her trust the girl. She’s sure she came over her here because she wanted to. She wanted to see if she was okay, and give her these pretty flowers. She could be her first friend.

“Would you like to play with me?” Mitsuko asks, looking out at the other children for a moment. She’ll be like them, for once. She won’t be the odd one out. For once, she can pretend her life is exactly like theirs.

The girl is about to say something back, and judging by the light in her eyes and the smile on her lips, she’s going to say yes, and finally, Mitsuko will have company and possibly even a friend. Before the girl can reply, however, the crunching of leaves fills their ears and Mitsuko sees a hand grip the other girl’s wrist. On instinct, she moves back, just about toppling off the bench, and she just watches.

“What are you doing over here?!” The girl’s mother, she presumes, watching as she puts her hands gently on her shoulders. She wonders for a moment if she should just go, that she’ll just cause trouble if she sticks around. She stays there anyway, as if she’s just stuck right in place.

“She looked lonely. I wanted to see if she was okay,” the girl tries to explain. Mitsuko thinks she can see tears in her eyes, and she immediately feels terrible. She starts to wonder if she ruins everything she goes near.

Her mother lets out a deep sigh and Mitsuko thinks she shakes her head, leading her daughter gently away from the bench. Mitsuko knows she should look away or find somewhere else, or head home instead of wait for her father and risk getting hit in the face or being locked out for hours on end, but she doesn’t. She can’t. While it most likely will hurt her, she wants to see if what happens next will be exactly what she thinks will happen.

When the girl’s mother thinks they’re far enough away from Mitsuko, she looks at her daughter and takes her hands. Before she speaks to her, she shoots a glance at the girl on the bench that she can’t really describe properly – it appears as if she’s half-pitying her, but at the same time, she also seems to be looking at her as if she’s diseased. She hears the words. All of them. Every last one.

“I know you meant well, but you don’t go near girls like that. Look at her.”

The girl’s reply is a hesitant one, but she mumbles an ‘okay’ back to her mother all the same. Maybe a few months ago, Mitsuko would have cried, but she doesn’t. She understands now. It’s just the way it is. She looks down at her dirty dress, its condition the same as all the others in her closet – mother too drunk to do laundry, and her father too busy, it seems. She smells like the scent that completely overwhelms her home – cigarettes and alcohol.

 _Why would anyone ever want to be friends with me?_ she thinks to herself. _Not when I’m like…_ this.

Mitsuko looks up, and right in front of her, she sees the girl walking away with her mother. Before she disappears from sight, she looks back at her, and gives her a small smile. Her eyes don’t leave Mitsuko’s until her mother stops to ask her what she’s looking at, and then she’s gone again.

She looks down at the flowers the girl had given to her, the event now feeling as if it took a place a lifetime ago, and holds onto them for dear life. She tells herself she won’t forget her.

—

 _It’s unusual for dad to be so late,_ Noriko thinks to herself, gripping the bars of the staircase tightly. It isn’t the only unusual thing to come out of the situation, however – it’s strange to see her father look so upset, and it’s even stranger for her mother to send her right upstairs to her room to keep herself entertained as soon as he steps in the door, a solemn expression on his face.

It’s also quite unfair, she decides, watching from her spot on the stairs as her mother takes a seat at the table opposite him, cups of tea in front of them. It isn’t fair that Yugo, who currently resides in her mother’s arms, half-asleep, completely oblivious to the events around them, gets to stay and listen, when he’s just a baby. He isn’t even _one_ yet, only born not too long ago. She’s going to be six in five months – she should be able to stay down there.

She decided she wouldn’t argue this time, so instead, she settles for a middle-ground, hiding on the stairs, trying to pick up on as many pieces of the conversation as she can from where she’s situated. She’s already argued enough today. She still can’t figure out what was wrong about that girl at the park, but it was just easier to agree than to make a scene. Sure, her dress was dirty and her hair a mess, but what if she just fell or something? It doesn’t make her a bad person.

Maybe she’s being ‘too good’ again. Her mother said that once. They went into the city, and she pointed to this man curled up on the pavement, outside a shop, staring straight ahead with a scowl on his face. Noriko had commented that someone should get him a blanket. Her mother had just sighed, ruffled her hair, and mumbled to her as they continued on their way, _“you’re much too good, Noriko.”_

She’s not too sure what that means still, and didn’t want to bother her by asking. There’s no time to dwell on that at the moment, anyway, as her father has finally spoken. She moves down a few steps, as close as she dares, trying to catch as much as she possibly can. What could have possibly made her father look so sad.

“I lost my job today,” her father says after a sip of tea, voice quiet. Noriko can’t completely understand, as she’s only five years old, but judging by her mother’s gasp and that she’s sure it’s the reason why her father’s so upset, it mustn’t be good. She continues to listen, wondering if there’s more to the story.

“What? _Why?”_ her mother’s eyes widen. One of her hands starts to to shake. “You’ve always been a skilled worker. You’re one of the best they have.”

Without thinking, Noriko nods. Her father’s the best in every way, and she’s sure that he must be the same with work. She decides that him losing his job was an unbelievably stupid thing to happen.

“The company isn’t doing well,” her father’s face is still solemn. It scares her. He’s always happy. His happiness fills the room whenever he walks in, and the absence of it makes her world feel much darker. It isn’t supposed to be like this. “At first, I wasn’t that worried, until those around me disappeared. It was only chance they got rid of me. Easily, it could have been the man next to me. He worked just as hard as I do.”

Her mother begins to cry, which only adds to Noriko’s worry. None of this is right.

“You’ll find another job though, right?” her mother looks at him, hopeful. Her father nods at her. “Of course you’ll find another job.”

Noriko decides to leave then, and goes up to her room where she was supposed to be all along. She grabs a piece of paper and begins to draw something to try and get her mind off what’s happening downstairs. The drawing comes out all wrong, though, and is quickly thrown into the wastepaper basket. After that, she just sits there, thinking. Thinking as hard as she possibly can.

 _It was only chance_ , her father said. She thinks about this for awhile. Chance is a funny thing. A cruel thing… but there’s good chances as well, right? There’s a chance, a good chance her father will get a job somewhere else and it will all be fine. In a year’s time, they will most likely never speak of this again. It’ll all be back to normal.

—

Noriko isn’t the only five year old girl in town sitting on a staircase that night, watching and listening. Mitsuko does the same in her own home, only she’s absolutely terrified. She’s been sitting on the stairs for two hours now, hands shaking as they grip the bars of the staircase, trying to remind herself that she’s five, and a big girl, and that this has happened before. It doesn’t stop herself from being scared though, no matter how hard she tries.

Her father is the one shouting now. The topic turns back to Mitsuko again, and while neither of them can see her, she ducks her head in shame. She is starting to wonder if her mother hates her, and if she doesn’t already, the fact that they’re fighting about her yet again won’t give her anymore reasons to like her. If only she could tell him to stop, and that it’s fine, but she stays in place. She’d just cause more trouble.

“What were you thinking?! She was at the park, blocks away, all by herself! She’s _five years old_! She could have been hurt, or killed, or abducted! Who knows who lives in this area?!” her father is livid. She can see his face turning red from where she sits. Her father is scary when he yells, but it’s never been directed at her. She’s very grateful for that.

“What about _me_? What about what I want to do?” her mother shoots back. Mitsuko’s starting to wonder if her mother’s favourite thing in the whole world is herself. It’s high up there, at least. Those foul smelling bottles that fill the house probably take the crown.

“Sitting at home, boozing and doing god knows what else is not a fucking excuse! What the fuck is wrong with you?! Don’t you care about her?!” her father is even louder now. She covers her ears, just as she hears something smash against the wall. She wonders if it’s her mother’s ashtray, but then she remembers it’s already broken. She threw it at her yesterday. She ducked just in time.

“It’s not like I even wanted her!” her mother retorts. “If you care so much, you look after her. You’re hardly ever here!”

“Someone has to work to keep this roof over our head, and you do fuck all except spend the money. You’re like a leech. A fucking leech. You’re the laziest person I know!” her father doesn’t give up. She keeps her ears covered, but it does nothing to block out the words. From where she sits, she can still see a reasonable amount of the fight as well.

Such as, when her mother yells at her father, snatches a dinner plate at the table, and throws it at his head. When it catches the side of his face, she almost whimpers, but holds it back at the last moment. If her mother knew she was watching, things would only get worse. When they continue to fight, she forces herself to look away, uncovering her ears for a moment to wipe away the tears that have started to spill. It’s then she hears something that makes her feel even more scared than she was before.

“I’m done, alright? I’m completely done with you. I can’t believe I thought I could make this work. You’re just a miserable bitch that can’t give a fuck about anything that isn’t booze or yourself!”

Her father leaves the room after that. She moves further up the stairs, but even if she had stayed where she was, she probably wouldn’t have been noticed. Her father is much too focused on getting out of there, storming through the hallway towards the bedroom he shares with her mother. She can hear him throwing things, and in the other room, her mother pouring a drink.

 _Maybe I should go to bed,_ she thinks to herself. Hopefully, by tomorrow morning, things will be back to normal. Her mother and father will not be talking, but that’s  normal thing in their house now, and she’ll probably get kicked out again, and her dad will find her at the park, they’ll fight again, and it’ll keep going on in circles. The thought of going through this again tomorrow makes her feel sick, but what can she do?

She’s about to get up and go up to bed when she hears her father’s thundering footsteps, and she can’t help but turn around. He unlocks the door, a bag slung over his shoulder and a suitcase in hand. _He’s leaving._ He has to be back in the morning, right? He’s just angry at the moment and needs a break, but he’ll be back. She should just go to bed and wait for tomorrow. He’ll be there in the morning, as per usual.

He’s gone now. She notices the door is still open. She hears her mother pour another drink, on her third by now, and most likely distracted. Her gaze goes between the door and the staircase – should she go after him, or go to bed? It’ll all be fine tomorrow and she’s overreacting… she has to be.

Still, she starts to move towards the door instead of the staircase. She takes off into the darkness, almost tripping over several times, but she stays on her feet, screaming for him, over and over. When she catches up to him, she begins to cry.

“Don’t leave without me,” she sobs. “If you’re leaving, take me with you.”

Her father nods and picks her up, and she buries her face in his shoulder, shielding her eyes from the streetlights. Together, they leave the house behind, never to be seen again, off to a new, much better life.

—

 _School isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,_ Mitsuko thinks to herself after returning home one afternoon. She’s into her third week now, and the novelty has worn off. The days are long and boring, and she’d much rather sit around with her father all day than spend time in the stuffy classroom, the children’s voices too loud and the lessons going on forever. At the very least, she’s managed to find some friends. Now that her clothes are clean and she smells like flowers and soap, the children want to actually hang around her. She tries not to think about what would happen if things suddenly went back to the way they used to be – would they abandon her? It isn’t useful, and just makes her sad, and she’s done being upset.

Despite the fact that school is a daily problem now, things have only gotten better in the past while. Her and her father moved away and finally, he could do what he always wanted to do, which ended in him buying the shop. He’s been making things out of wood since he was just a little older than her six years, and always wanted to do something with it, and now he can. He doesn’t look tired anymore, and it makes her feel happier than anything to see a smile on his face daily. She wants to be like him one day.

Her mother still comes to her thoughts often, but she doesn’t mention it to her father. She doesn’t want to wipe the smile off his face. She knows that her mother wasn’t the best, that she wasn’t very kind and that their lives are a lot better since they left her in the past, but it doesn’t stop her thinking of her. Her mother truly doesn’t care. She hasn’t sent any letters, or money, not even a birthday card. When the class could bring their mothers in for the day last week, she was the only one without someone there.

She didn’t tell her father. She didn’t want to upset him.

For now, she brushes the thoughts away, and takes in her surroundings. The shop is a nice size, smells of sawdust, and it’s only a block away from her school, which is rather convenient. She looks around at the wooden figures that fill the shelves and cover the walls, and smiles. Her father made all these, and he’s unbelievably talented.

She greets her father as she climbs onto the stool beside him. She looks over at him, watching him. He’s working on something new. He’s only in the early stages, so she can’t really tell what it will be, but she’s sure whatever it is, it will be a work of art. He asks her how her day was and she tells him that it was okay, just a little boring, and after that, he puts down his knife and reaches down for something.

“I got you something today,” her father says, looking back at her. She looks at him, frowning for a moment, wondering if she missed some sort of important day.

“Oh… it was my birthday only a little while ago though,” Mitsuko looks over at him. He chuckles and places the object in front of her. For a moment, she studies it. It’s the colour of milk and square shaped, and smells rather nice.

It’s… _a bar of soap._

“Don’t give me that look,” her father says, but judging by his laughter, he isn’t mad when she shoots him a look that obviously is meant to mean, _‘seriously?’_ “You’ve been saying you want to do what I do, and this is how I started. With soap at first, until I was old enough to start using knives. I’m sure you’ll be good at him.”

She watches as he produces a stick akin to the ones she grips while eating popsicles in the summertime, and begins to work with the soap. She watches with intrigue, and after awhile, decides to give it a shot. It isn’t perfect by any means, but practice makes perfect, and before she knows it, she’s sure she’ll be able to work with wood like he does.

For now, this is enough.

—

Unlike she was hoping, things do not get better in Noriko’s house. The year since her father lost his job has been a long, sad, and painful one. The house is dark, faces melancholy, some nights they don’t eat, and slowly but surely, she has noticed a thin layer of dust begin to cover most things in the house. Yugo isn’t the only one that cries in the house. Her mother does, over the stove, hands shaking on the nights she manages to get herself to put dinner on the table, Noriko herself cries at night, into her pillow, trying to tell herself that this will all work out soon – it has to, and most troubling at all, when he thinks everyone is fast asleep, her father cries at the kitchen table, thinking he is an absolute failure for not being able to find a job.

What worries her even more than her father’s sobbing is the fact that she’s noticed that he doesn’t go out anymore. It’s as if he’s completely given up, and it breaks her heart. To be truthful, she isn’t really sure what her father does these days – sometimes she sees him at the kitchen table in the morning, appearing to see her off, eyes tired, his hands holding onto a mug of coffee for dear life. Other than that, he usually spends the day in his bedroom, door shut, closed off to the world. She wonders if she can do anything, but most days, her mind is completely blank. All she has is her hope to hold onto.

The house is quiet when she comes home from school. This isn’t an anomaly these days, but something still feels slightly… _off._ The anxiety filling her stomach starts to subside when she reads the letter on the table – her mother had to take Yugo to the doctor (how can something not even a year old cause so much trouble, she thinks), but she’ll be back soon. Noriko’s grateful her father began to teach her how to read before she began school, when he still had a job and wasn’t so depressed. He’s still there, she knows that, but she misses him, misses him so badly in a way she can’t properly describe.

The shut bedroom door at the end of the hall sticks out to her. Her dad must have stayed home. She thinks for a moment about opening it, him usually leaving it unlocked, but she ultimately decides against it, going to her own room instead. A plan begins to form in her mind. Even though she is only six years old, she knows it won’t fix what is going on, but for now, it might be a temporary relief from the sadness.

She doesn’t waste any time getting to work. She gets a blank piece of paper and her best set of pencils, and begins work on what she is sure will be her best drawing yet. As she starts on the sky, trying her hardest to get the blue right, wanting it to be absolutely perfect, her face fills with concentration. One by one, she draws the four of them – herself, her mother, her father and Yugo. By the end of it, she’s sure they look as perfect as she can possibly make them.

She adds the finishing touches to the drawing, thinking of a previous one she did ages ago, before Yugo was born, even. Her father had liked it so much he’d taken it to work to put up above his desk. She wonders what happened to it, and hopes desperately it didn’t end up in the trash. She then tells herself it isn’t the time to think about things like that, and stands up, admiring her drawing for a moment.

It’s ready. She smiles to herself and walks down the hallway, staring up at the closed door. Is going in going to bother him? Will he get annoyed? She tries to think logically, that her father has never gotten angry at her before, and he’d probably be happy to see her. When the voice of her mother downstairs lets her know that she’s home, she decides to take her chance. If her mother catches her up here, she’ll probably lead her away and tell her to leave him be, as she has before.

She pushes open the door, and finds that the room is almost completely dark. A small bit of sun coming in gives her enough light to see what’s going on. She sees the piece of paper on the edge of the bed first, ready to drift down onto the carpet, and then, finally, she sees her dad. For a moment, she wonders if he’s playing some sort of game, and even when she realises that this is not a game, she still doesn’t exactly know what is going on.

All she knows is that his stillness frightens her, as well as the rope around his neck, and before she can stop herself, she screams, and screams, and screams. Her mother marches up the stairs, a now crying Yugo in her arms, demanding to know what the hell is wrong with her, but her yelling stops short as soon as she sees him, and she starts to scream too. She tells Noriko to leave, and she obliges, wishing she was anywhere but here.

There’s so many questions she wants to ask, but she keeps quiet. She shuts her door and sits against it, trying to ignore all the sounds coming from outside her room, which now feels like the only place she ever wants to be in the world. A crinkling sound makes her realise that her drawing is still in her hand, in a ball now, and carefully, she tries to unfold it. No matter how careful she is, however, it doesn’t stop her from ripping it on accident. That’s what makes her cry, and she rips it again, but this time, it’s on purpose. Several minutes later, her floor is covered in confetti. She can’t even remember what it looks like anymore, yet it was supposed to be her masterpiece. It doesn’t matter anymore. There’s sirens outside now, which tell her that there’s bigger things to worry about now.

How can things get any worse?

That night, when it’s obvious that her father will never be coming back, she fills her entire room with confetti. She never wants to draw again, and wants to make sure there’s no remnants of them left intact. When her mother opens the door and sees the mess she’s made, she yells at her, but she cries instead of finishing her lecture. When Noriko starts crying too, she starts yelling again.

She tries not to think of the long year ahead, or the years that will follow.

—

When she’s eight, after what feels like forever, Mitsuko’s father lets her start working with wood when he’s around. He trusts her, but after all, she’s only eight, and he doesn’t want any accidents. She’s better than he was with the soap, he tells her, and she smiles, nods and thanks him, but deep down, she wonders if he’s just saying it because she’s his daughter, the only person he has left. It’s the only thing that comes to mind that really makes sense. She’s not that spectacular, in her opinion. She ruins things when she tries to give them greater detail and nine times out of ten, the carvings don’t come out at all looking like what she envisioned them to be in her head, but she doesn’t oppose moving onto wood. Anything to be more like her father.

She catches the look of her reflection in the mirror in the corner of the room during her latest carving lesson, and she looks away as fast as she can. As she grows up, it’s been hard not to notice that she’s looking progressively more like her mother, and it hurts. Sometimes, she wishes she could just get rid of her face and replace it with a new one. She doesn’t get it when her father says she’s beautiful – how can she be beautiful if she looks almost exactly like someone who turned out to be so ugly? – but she smiles anyway. She doesn’t want to upset him, her father’s happiness meaning the world to her.

All she can do is keep it inside, telling herself over and over that while she may have her mother’s face, she won’t end up like her. She won’t act like her or be like her. She won’t be like her at all.

Her father taking the carving knife out of her hand brings her out of her thoughts and back into reality. She drifted away for longer than she thought she did, it appears. She almost falls of the stool at the surprise, but she catches herself at the last minute, gripping the block of wood in her other hand so tightly that it hurts.

“Your mind seems somewhere else today, Mitsuko,” her father tells her. She looks at him and just shrugs, loosening her grip on the block of wood. She wants him to know that she’s fine, but at the same time, she knows that she won’t be able to fool him. He knows her better than anyone, and he’s the only person she trusts in the world. “Did something happen at school again?”

She knows what he’s referring to. School has been a little rough lately, since a few girls made it their mission to make her life at school just about hell. Last week, when one of them told her at lunch that she wouldn’t grow up properly without a mother to look after her, she couldn’t take it anymore, and threw her onto the grass with as much force as she could manage. When her father picked her up from the office, hair a mess and grass stains on her coat, he looked so ashamed, but he seemed to understand a little better when she told him what she’d said to her. Still, he insisted, that it wasn’t an excuse to fight. She’d tried to control herself since then and just ignore it, but that was easier said than done.

“No, not today,” she says honestly. Today, to her relief, they left her alone. She enjoyed it while she could, knowing it won’t last forever.

“I can see something’s happened,” he’s not accusing, he’s just asking because he cares about her, but she still feels a little nervous. Before she can stop herself, she blurts every single thing on her mind all out, tears filling her eyes. It doesn’t take long before they start to spill down her cheeks.

“I don’t want to be like her! My mother! I want a different face! I want to get a different face! It’s just not fair! My teacher says there’s millions – no _billions_ of people in the world, yet I have to look almost exactly like her!” Mitsuko sobs, voice shaky. By the end, he can barely understand her, but he’s heard enough for his heart to completely shatter. “I want to be like you! I want to be good at this like you… but I’m NOT!”

Her father looks over at her, sadness instead of pity in his eyes. He wraps his arms around her and she cries more, breathing in his signature scent of cheap soap and sawdust as she listens to his words. She’ll be fine, he says. She is different, can be whoever she wants to be. She’ll get better at carving roo, he promises – after all, she only just started.

What means the most is when he says to her that he can see himself in her, both inside and out, which gives her enough motivation to pull away, wipe her tears on the sleeve of her coat, and to get ready to get back to work.

A small smile crosses her face when he carefully hands her the knife again. Now she can focus properly with her mind clear, feelings finally known, and the lesson is nowhere near a disaster. It may take awhile, probably years, but the self-doubt will fade eventually. She can do this. If her father says she can, especially if he says he can see himself in her, she’s sure she can do it.

It might just take a little time.

—

When she sees the man in the suit enter her house, accompanied by a small family kind of resembling what they used to be like, Noriko is confused. A lot of things are quite confusing these days, like how none of her family comes to the house or calls on the phone anymore, or how her friends are now pretending she doesn’t exist and she’s left on the sidelines, reminding her of the little girl at the park that day when things were better – she isn’t going to ever forget her.

Another thing that has confused her, that she figures may just be connected to the fact her mother is slowly but surely packing up the house day after day, their belongings stuffed into the boxes her mother asks for at the grocery store whenever they go shopping, another thing that confused her. Everything started to confuse her gradually after her father lost her job, but now that he is dead, everything seems to be turning completely senseless.

When she goes to run up the pathway and to the front door, her mother grans her arm, pinching her skin tightly until she stops trying to get away, only letting go when she looks back at her. Noriko rubs her skin lightly, blinking back the tears in her eyes, not wanting to be anymore trouble. She returns to her mother’s side, and without really thinking about it properly, starts to speak.

“Why aren’t you calling the police? There’s strangers in our house!” Noriko insists, looking up at her. Her mother lets out a sigh, making no effort to try and hide it. Her face wears the tired looks that barely leaves her these days as he reaches her hand out for her daughter’s.

When Noriko takes it, she leads her over to the large white sign in their front yard. She’s been aware of its presence for awhile now, passing it but never taking time to look at it as she walks to school, finding it easier to pretend it isn’t there than to take time to notice its existence.

“Can you read what it says, Noriko?” her mother asks. Noriko frowns and reads it over for a moment, the words easy. She’s the best reader in the class, and her teacher has even told her that she’s above the reading level expected for her age.

“For sale,” Noriko says clearly, but there is no pride in her voice. Her mother nod. Confusion crosses her face as she looks up at her. “Why are you selling our house?”

Her mother meets her eyes and wraps an arm around her, letting out a tired sigh. Noriko decides to keep quiet, and instead stares at the for sale sign. Now that she noticed it, and realises what it means, she can’t take her eyes off it, as if it is mocking her. She knows if her father was here, this wouldn’t be happening. She knows that if he were here, things would be so much better. He’d probably have another job by now, and be much happier as a result, and her friends would still be around-

She cuts the thought off, it not mattering anymore. She cannot change the past. Her mother’s words cut through the quiet, and bring her back to the present.

“We can’t afford to live here anymore,” her mother simply states.

Noriko doesn’t know why exactly, but it’s those words that make her start to cry. Why is everything becoming so different now? Why does everything have to keep getting worse and worse. Why did the universe have to first make her father so unhappy, and then have to take him away too? She can ask all the questions she wants, but she never thinks she’ll ever get an answer. She can hear her mother sighing again, and she forces herself to wipe her tears away, eyes locked on the grass.

It doesn’t make much difference. The tears keep coming.

“Noriko, come on. Don’t keep crying. You have to be a big girl now.”

She keeps wiping her tears away as they come, and eventually, they stop, her mother’s words remaining in her thoughts. She’s only eight years old. She’s not ready to be a big girl yet. She doesn’t want to be a big girl yet, either, and seeing how tired and annoyed her mother has been since her father passed, and how hopeless he ended up, she’s not sure if she ever wants to grow up at all.

It’s going to happen, she knows that. Things always just keep on happening, even if she doesn’t want them to.

—

Their new apartment cannot compare at all to her childhood house, Noriko immediately observes. For starters, it is situated in the part of town that is simply referred to at school as ‘the bad side,’ which frightens her, and its absolutely tiny. The kitchen has little breathing space, you bump the back of your legs against the toilet when you use the sink in the bathroom, the living room is not much bigger than the hallway, and the bedroom she is going to share with her brother is like a shoebox. When he grows out of his crib, which probably won’t be long soon, she has no idea how they’ll fit two beds in.

She stands in the tiny living room with her mother after she has given her the supposed ‘grand tour’ of the apartment, trying to ignore the strange smell she immediately noticed upon stepping inside. It’s been about an hour since they first got here, but the only thing she can remember is the look of disappointment on everyone’s face when her mother opened the door. Even Yugo, who has only just turned two and has no real idea of what is happening, even seemed to look a little sad.

“We should get to unpacking,” her mother says, it obvious she doesn’t want to dwell on the state of the place. Noriko gives her a nod, and goes off to find some of the lighter boxes.

She watches her mother hesitate before putting Yugo on the floor, as if he will be swallowed whole by the grimy carpet as soon as he comes into contact with it, but nothing happens and he seems happy enough. He waves a teddy bear around in his head and repeats ‘bear,’ his favourite word at the moment, over and over. Noriko smiles at him for a moment, but she can’t help but let out a sigh. She wishes she was his age again. Nothing would be expected of her if she was just a baby.

Together, through the hours, they unpack. Over the course of the day, Noriko notices that all the remnants of their father that had remained in her old home – her _real_ home – have vanished. Gone are his clothes, left untouched since the awful day he died, that still carried his smell, that she used to go through during the day, selecting one to keep with her until his scent faded, knowing that one day, they’d all stop smelling like him and she’d have nothing. His other watch, his backup one, is also gone, which makes her heart sink. He got it as a gift not too long after Yugo was born, with her and her brother’s birthday’s inscribed on the back. He kept it as a backup as he was prone to losing things, and didn’t want to lose something that special.

She wonders where it ended up, but it hurts too much to keep thinking about it. The thought of a stranger wearing it, having no idea what the birthdays on the back mean or the importance of the names attached, hurts more than it ending up in the trash.

All the photographs of him are gone too, she notices, which scares her. She’s not sure if she remembers his face properly anymore, and she wouldn’t dare try to draw it – that hobby is dead, and she’s sure it always will be. She wants to ask about the photographs desperately, but it’s best not to say anything. Everytime she asks her mother a question, she seems to get more and more annoyed with her.

In her house, no one mentions her father anymore. It’s just easier this way. If they never actually say out loud that he’s not here anymore, it’s easier to pretend that he’s gone away for a little while. Maybe having the photographs hurt her mother too much? Her mother is the real grown up here, her decisions final, so it feels like the right thing to stay quiet.

When the unpacking is done after what feels like an eternity and Yugo has been sent off for a nap, her mother grabs a glass from the cupboard and pours herself something from the tall bottle in the fridge, the first thing Noriko noticed she put in there. She watches her take a seat at their small, shaky kitchen table and take a sip, emitting a long sigh of relief once her throat comes into contact with the liquid. She looks over at her daughter after that first sip, as if that has given her enough energy to be ready to deal with her, and Noriko looks down, wishing she was anywhere else.

Whenever her mother looks at her these days, she always looks so tired of her.

“Maybe you could go take a look around? See if you can make friends with some of the other kids her?” While she has phrased it as an offer, Noriko knows it is an order. Code words for, _‘I want to be left alone.’_ She nods at her, goes to the door, and slides her shoes on before heading outside.

She’s surprised at how light it is outside, the unpacking taking less time than she thought it did. It’s cold and she wishes that she brought a coat with her, but she decides it would be for the best to just walk through it instead of going back. Going back would just annoy her mother, and she wants to avoid that as much as possible. She walks along, down the stairs to the floor below hers, rubbing her arms gently. After awhile, she feels almost indifferent to the cold air.

When she turns the corner, she sees a group of girls sitting against the railing. One of them holds a glass bottle, passing it to a friend, and another one is smoking. For a moment, she is afraid, but tells herself not to judge them. One of the girls seems to have kind eyes, so she figures it’ll be okay. They only look about twelve, thirteen at most, only a few years older than her. She smiles at them. Maybe they can be friends?

“Hey,” the girl with the kind eyes waves to her, giving her a small smile. She stands, and with her, so do her companions. The girl that has the glass bottle now reaches her hand over the railing, and lets it drop. Noriko flinches slightly at the faint sound of the smash.

“Good afternoon,” Noriko stammers, looking over at them. “I’m Noriko, I just moved here. I’m nine.”

The girl that had the cigarette moves closer to her, and now she’s smiling too, and her eyes look rather kind now as well. Noriko feels stupid for judging them by appearance alone, and returns the smile. They say hello to her and introduce themselves, and they all seem rather kind and funny and sweet, just like the friends she lost what feels like forever ago.

They’re going for ice cream, they tell her, and ask if she wants to come. She thinks for a moment, wondering if her mother will come looking for her and get scared if she can’t find it, but realises there’s little chance of that happening. Her mother will probably want to be left alone for quite awhile longer, so she won’t really miss. She nods at them and says that she’ll come along, following then down the stairs.

For awhile, they walk, and she follows, trying to make note of how to navigate the place. Her mother will just sigh at her and get more annoyed if she doesn’t some stupid like get lost. Getting out of the apartment building seems to take forever, and when the girls turn a corner, leading them instead into a kind of secluded area instead of out of the building, she realises that something is not right.

She can’t leave. Two girls stand behind her, and when she steps back, one of them takes her arm. She realises that it’s the girl that she first noticed had the kind eyes, and before she knows what she’s doing, she asks what’s happening. She isn’t met with an answer. Laughter fills her ears, and she hits the concrete before she knows what’s happening. Someone kicks her in the side, and the laughter gets louder. After awhile, she stops trying to get up.

When she wills herself to look up, feeling blood dripping down her face – she wonders if anything is broken, she doesn’t think it hurts enough for anything to be – she sees the kind-eyed girl looming over her. She laughs at her, a cruel laugh that makes her feel even worse, before slamming her boot into her cheek. It’s the last thing she feels for several hours.

When she gets up, the girls gone and sitting in her own blood, thankfully nothing broken, she promises herself not to trust anyone again. She decides that it will be for the best not to trust anyone again, and as she limps back to her own apartment, hoping desperately the girls won’t jump out at her on the walk home, she wonders what she could have done to make the universe hate her so much.

—

The same thing happens day in and day out after that in Noriko’s life. She gets up, gets Yugo something to eat, as her mother is too tired to get up and do it herself, then gets ready for school. On her way out of the building, she gets jumped, and cleans herself up in a gas station bathroom before continuing on her way. The girl behind the counter shoots her pitying glances, but never intervenes. At school, no one approaches her. She comes home, gets jumped again, cleans herself up so Yugo won’t see the state of her, and spends the afternoon looking after him instead of completing her schoolwork.

Her mother gets less interested in the two of them as the years go by. She gets sadder and drunker and eventually, resigns herself to a spot on the couch. She gets fired from the job that Noriko was surprised she kept so long in the first place. She drinks, halfway through a bottle when her daughter comes home, and looks away to avoid looking at the atrocious state of her face.

It doesn’t hurt as much now. She is twelve now, and this is her life. She doesn’t know why the universe has decided that things will turn out for her this way, but she feels like there’s nothing she can do now. She hides it all away and focuses on looking after her brother and getting herself through the day, and at night, before she drifts off to do it all again, puts down all the feelings she’s been bottling up onto paper.

They did a lesson on poetry a few weeks after the girls beat her for the first time, and the words spoke to her. Long after the topic was over, she continued to write her own, now private and much more personal poetry. She pinched a notebook from the gas station one morning (which she is rather ashamed about now, but at the time, it seemed like a good idea), and has been writing ever since. She hides it under a strip of carpet in the corner of the bedroom she shares with her brother, and only takes it out when she knows she is safe and free.

She’s due to leave for school in a few minutes (she leaves half an hour earlier than most kids do, so she has enough time to get herself together), so she finishes off her latest piece hastily and stuffs the book in its hiding place, collecting her bag off the floor. Her mother is still asleep on the couch, in front of the muted television, and Yugo sits at the table, finishing off the breakfast she made for him. She smiles for him and ignores her mother.

“I have to go now, Yugo,” Noriko picks him up, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Be nice to mommy, okay?”

“I will,” he smiles at her, his words shaky. “I love you.”

She smiles and says that she loves him too and that she’ll see him later, and leaves without pausing, knowing that if she doesn’t, she’ll be tempted to stay home all day. She shuts the door quickly, hoping the girls are not lurking close. They don’t know she has a brother, they just think she lives with a hopeless mother, and she wants to keep it this way. If they hurt Yugo, it would completely shatter her.

Most of all, she would feel like an absolute failure.

Right on cue, it almost tedious these days, the girls wait by the entrance for her. She tried to go the other way once, but some of the others were waiting for her there, and she was still beaten to a pulp as per usual. It’s easier just to go the normal way, as it takes less time, and the ending result is the same. Strangely enough, today, they let her pass, but she doesn’t think she’ll escape that easily. They are known to play games, but she knows most of them by now, unless they have decided to try out something new. She passes, but before she can get out, run down the road as past as possible, and breath the loudest, most triumphant sigh of relief she will ever let out in her life, two of the girls grab her arms. She just about jumps out of her skin, it reminding her of the day, that awful first day, that she still frequently has nightmares about.

“You’re insane,” one of them says. It is the girl with the supposed kind eyes, that Noriko has come to know as the ringleader of the worst. She was how Noriko learnt that eyes _can_ actually lie, and it is a lesson she has never forgotten. “God, it’s been like, what, three years, and you’re not a fucking disaster yet.”

“My father always told me that in life, I need to keep going,” Noriko says. Inside, she curses herself for bringing up her father. They know he is dead, a piece of unfortunate information that slipped out when she was still nine and getting used to this, and have thrown this in her face. Since she has now come to the realisation that when she found him that day he had committed suicide, it has gotten all the lot worse. She has managed to keep that part a secret.

“There you go again,” one of the other girls rolls her eyes. She steps forward, and Noriko prepares to be struck, but words come out instead of a punch being thrown. “If your father really wanted to heed his own advice, he would have kept going in life.”

“That’s enough,” the ‘kind eyed’ girl snaps. “I thought I told you that I was the one who would be doing the talking.”

The girl mumbles an apology and steps back into the horde of girls, their ringleader the only one really close to Noriko, but it does nothing to make her feel any sort of relief. She is no doubt the cruellest one. She appears in her nightmares the most, and while she is used to most things in her new life, the sight of her still makes her shudder. She doesn’t know what she could have done to any of them to make them hate her so much, but asking would only give them another opening to ridicule her.

“Yes?” Noriko looks up at them, using every bit of courage she has. Some of the girls seem somewhat surprised by her confidence.

“We want you to hang with us from now on,” their ringleader says to her, and Noriko can’t hide her surprise. “Some of us can see something in you, me included. You’ve barely batted an eyelid for the three years we’ve been fucking you up for, which means two things – either you’re absolutely crazy, or pretty fucking hardcore.”

Noriko looks at her, still unable to hide her surprise, but she nods at her anyway, fearing what could possibly happen if she declined. Then  again, how could it get any worse? Soon enough, they’ll figure out that they’re wrong, that there’s absolutely nothing ‘hardcore’ about her, and hopefully, they leave her alone, even though she knows getting bashed again is more likely.

The girls start to walk away, and Noriko just stares, gripping the straps of her bag tightly, stuck in place. One of the girls looks over at her, face impatient, and the lot of them stop.

“What are you waiting for? Come on,” one of them says, looking at her expectantly.

“I-I… I have to go to school,” Noriko stutters, immediately realising how pathetic she sounds. Several of them start to roar with laughter and mimic her words, and another grabs her bag off her shoulders, almost knocking her onto the ground, and empties out its contents into a puddle. She is almost about to cry out, but she holds it back at the last minute.

“You won’t be needing this shit anymore,” she says, tossing her bag into the puddle, on top of a textbook. Noriko is more grateful than ever that she keeps her poetry book at home. If she lost that, or if they found it, took it, and picked her to pieces for it, it would completely destroy her. “Come with us.”

Noriko nods, and without another word, starts to follow them. It reminds her too much of that first, horrible day that was the start of her nightmares and the beginning of bleeding noses, broken fingers, and her chipped front tooth, almost half of it missing. Her mother must have noticed once, as it was just after her tenth birthday that it happened, but never commented. Her teachers didn’t either. She heard one of her old friends laughing about how it looked at one lunch break.

The trip does not end with fists being pounded into her face. The girls take her to what looks like an old warehouse, that she can immediately tell is ‘their’ space. There’s grubby couches strewn around, a stained rug in the middle of them, even a mini fridge in the corner. The wall is riddled with graffiti and names, she notices upon first glance, and hers joins the others in shaky red paint when one of the girls gives her the spray can.

“This is Noriko,” the ringleader says, and a few of them nod at her, before going back to what they were doing, whether making out with someone, drinking, or doing god knows what else what. She doesn’t belong here. She should be in class right now, in her final year of primary school, listening to her teacher talk about the book their reading in class or solving math problems. Not here.

It’s obvious the girls want her to sit down, so she carefully sits down on the couch that looks the least suspicious, coincidentally as far away from the few boys there as she can. They seem much more interested in the girls their own age though, she observes within a few hours, and their numbers dwindle, leaving with the girls as the time passes. The ringleader stays, and sits beside her for the whole time, as if she’s worried she’ll run away.

She gets up for a moment to grab a can from the fridge, tossing it to one of the other girls, before getting another for herself. She cracks it open and takes a sip, then passes it to Noriko. It smells like her apartment, and her mother, making her screw her face up. The ringleader only laughs at her, and tells her to take a sip. For a moment, Noriko looks at the bright red lip print the girl has left there, before placing the can to her lips. She wills herself not to drop it. If she does, the bubble will be burst, and she’s sure she’ll get punched.

It is the worst thing she has ever tasted in her life. She can’t help but hiccup and let out a few coughs, but unlike she was expecting, the looks of contempt don’t come. Instead, the room fills with laughter, and the ringleader takes the can off her, telling her that she’ll get used to it soon, and she downs the can in the next five minutes.

Noriko is sure she won’t.

She’s offered a cigarette in the next hour, her first of many, and it tastes bad too and makes her couch, but one of them, one of the nicer ones, sits with her and teaches her how to smoke it, and she gets the hang of it by the time she gets home. It’s better than the shit in the can, and if she takes it up, maybe they’ll get off her back about trying the alcohol again. She takes the pack almost gladly from the girl, who tells her there’s more where they came from, and smokes another one. It makes her feel numb, less hungry and less desperate, and she thinks it won’t be too bad to get used to them.

After she comes home to find her mother yelling at Yugo for throwing up all over the carpet, she smokes the whole pack in one night.

—

When Mitsuko comes home one day, a few days shy of her fourteenth birthday, to find takeout on the table, she knows something is wrong. Her father is the strongest, most avid defender of the good, classic home cooked meal that she knows, and as a result, the last time she can remember actually eating something from a box and not cooked by him personally was during her childhood, a time she puts all her energy into trying not to revisit. She slips into her usual seat at their small table and watches her father pace around the room, hand clutched to his phone, and her stomach sinks. She hopes desperately nothing that bad has happened.

“What happened?” Mitsuko asks several minutes after he joins her at the table. He looks at her for a moment, eyes wide, and stares down at his plate. “Come on, dad. I always know what you’re thinking.”

Her father takes a deep breath and looks at her for a moment. He doesn’t know why he’s holding it back – it’s so stupid. She’s one of the strongest people she has ever met, and he truly means it, not saying it because she’s his daughter. The news won’t even break her. So why does he hesitate so much before he lets the words leave his mouth?

“I got a call on the phone this morning, about an hour after you went to school,” her father begins. Mitsuko nods along, and takes another bite of the greasy mess that claims to be food. “Your mother died last night. They found her this morning, in the gutter outside a club.”

Mitsuko just nods for a moment, and thinks to herself that it seemed like a death that would fit her. Now that she is older, and has learnt more, some of it good, some of it bad, some of it obscene, she’s built up a bigger picture of who her mother is now, despite the fact that she probably would have forgotten what she looked like if she didn’t have such a similar face. The names she was called and the stuff Mitsuko could see her doing now hold a meaning that sometimes, she wishes she didn’t manage to decipher. She was a lying, cheating alcoholic who sent her to the park while she fucked strangers for money all afternoon.

“Oh,” is all she can manage. She doesn’t exactly know what to feel. She isn’t sure what she feels, actually. Should she feel happy, or sad, or nothing at all? Since the day they left, there was not a word from her. No birthday cards, no Christmas cards, no gifts, letters in the mail, or even a phone call. Her dad raised her with everything he had, and he’s done a better job raising her than the two of them together could have ever done.

“We’re going back home for the funeral soon,” her father says, deciding to leave out the part where he only took up the job because no one else wanted to – she’ll probably connect the dots on her own. “Shiroiwa. Do you remember it at all?”

“I remember the bad bits,” she shrugs. The smashing glasses, raised voices, and the stench of alcohol and vomit that made the whole house suffocating. She remembers the park too, but keeps it to herself. Her father would probably classify it as one of the ‘bad bits.’ Even after all these years, the better years, the years of freedom and peace, she still remembers that little girl at the park. Sometimes, she wonders what she looks like now, and what she’s like, even though she knows there’s no use in wondering about someone she will never see again.

“I was thinking of moving back there. It’s better there now for us, and I’ve found a nicer place for us and the shop. We can have the shop downstairs, and live in the apartment upstairs. It’s perfect,” her father explains it all and she smiles at him and says it’s great, glad to see him happy.

She doesn’t have much here. Sure, there’s the shop, but that’s going along with her, and school will always be there wherever she goes – and she only really gets good marks in math and art, anyway. She’s never really had any close friends, none the type that you laugh a lot with and travel with and make memories with, and never had any boyfriends or girlfriends either, so it’s not much of a loss to leave. There will be a few things she will miss, but overall, starting again sounds good.

After dinner, so helps her father clean up, him washing and her drying, as it’s always been in this house. As she puts a plate away, she gets the urge to cry. This is all so… _normal._ It was easy to forget about life with her mother when she was never a topic of conversation, but now that she’s been brought up so suddenly due to her death, everything that could have been is popping into her head, and it doesn’t look good. It looks bleak, and upsetting and scary, and tears are spilling down her cheeks before she knows it.

“Mitsuko?” her father pus the sponge down and looks over at her. Pink floods her cheeks and she reaches up to wipe the tears that keep on flowing before giving him a hug.

“Thank you,” she croaks, starting to shake. “For not leaving me behind.”

Her father nods, and holds onto her tighter, telling her he’s thankful that he didn’t leave her behind too.

—

Whatever they’re doing today, Noriko is sure it isn’t good, but she tags along anyway. It took five years to get to this level of respect from the girls, and she’s not going to throw it away in a minute just because she’s worried about getting into trouble. She’s been on the wrong side of the law several times now, and while she hates it, it’s necessary for Yugo. She will gladly destroy herself if it means giving him a better life than her own. If that means selling bags of drugs to pay the bills and get him new shoes when he grows out of his old ones, so be it.

It’s the same old girls, drinking the same old bear and throwing around the same old insults and doing the same old drugs, only now, the boys and the girls they make out with are different, and they’re older now. They should be preparing to finish high school and sit college entrance exams, but they got out of school as soon as they could, living life on the streets instead.

They toast to Noriko in the warehouse every now and then, when reminiscing about their shitty years in junior high. The ringleader, eyes still showing the kind façade, pats her on the shoulder, it stinging when she’s drunk and playful when she’s sober, telling her she’s almost out. She’s in the eighth grade now, and there’s only one more to go before permanent, sweet freedom.

She doesn’t feel free though. She wants to stay on, but knows it’s futile. She’d never pass the entrance exams for high school, between looking after Yugo, now almost at school age, and wreaking havoc with her friends, and she doesn’t try that hard in school either, save for Japanese. The words flow out of her naturally, and she can’t hold it back even when she tries. She has kept this a secret from the girls, same with her poems. They’d just laugh and destroy her.

They pass a park on their way. Noriko looks out at the scenery as she fishes through her pocket for a lighter, collecting up inspiration for a new work to soothe her before she goes to sleep, after she’s played with Yugo and scrubbed the vomit out of her mother’s hair, the words one of the only thing in the world that keep her sane. She can’t help but notice it is not _the_ park, the park from when the world was still right and good and pure. It comes to her thoughts a lot, despite it being such a trivial thing, such a trivial place.

She notices something that sticks out in the park, amongst the greenery and the chestnut coloured benches, and the bright colours of the children’s play area – a strip of black. She looks at the black dress and the girl that is wearing it, obviously on her way home from her funeral, and has to stop. She looks so miserable, as she figures one would be at a funeral, but at the same time, so, so beautiful.

Art class comes to her mind. For so long, man has tried so hard to capture beauty – in paintings, sculptures, drawings, song, carvings and everything in between, but she is sure that every piece of artwork ever made and will be made will never compare to the beauty of the sad girl in the funeral dress all on her own in the park. Immediately, she is filled with the longing to get to know her, a longing she has never felt for anyone in the longest time.

When she meets the eyes of the girl, her eyes so dark they are almost black, the most beautiful eyes she has ever seen, her heart fills up with an emotion she does not know how to fully describe. The girl does not smile at her, but she does not look as miserable as she did before either. She cannot be read at all.

“With the way you’re carrying on, it’s as if you’ve never seen a girl before in your damn life,” a member of her group snaps at her, grabbing her by the shoulder. “Come on.”

Hesitantly, oh so hesitantly, she looks away, and continues on with the group. She thinks all day about how to put that girl into words on paper. She tears dozens of pages out of her book that night, and when she finally puts her pen down and stores the book under the carpet again, she still feels as if she has not captured her properly at all.

—

The female class leader for Shiroiwa Junior High’s Eighth Grade Class B seems almost ridiculously happy to see her. She introduces herself as Yukie Utsumi and links her arm with hers, saying that she is in good hands now, and takes no time beginning to give her the grand tour. The science labs bore her, it never one of her best subjects, but she smiles to be polite, and the gym is just as dreary, but she stays polite, ever so polite, and only gives her real, genuine interest when she takes her to the art rooms. The supplies they have are much better than what she had at her old school, and she can’t wait to become more acquainted with the place.

“You can hang out with me and my friends at break, if you like,” Yukie says to her after the tour is over, before they head back to class, which is Japanese, one of her worst. “I’m sure that we can make room for you at our table.”

Mitsuko gives her a small smile and nods, knowing that she will probably take her up on the offer, but at the same time, she knows that Yukie and her group won’t be the type of friends that she will laugh with and cry with, and make all the memories people dream of making at school with, but for now, it will do instead of staying alone. Maybe if the art teacher is friendly and they get on well, they will let her eat there at lunch, but that is something to deal with another time.

She is almost ready to go into the classroom, ready for the obligatory, _‘hi, I’m Mitsuko, the new kid’_ speech, before sinking into the only spare seat and become invisible, when something catches the corner of her eye. A girl, that looks somewhat familiar, but she cannot place her anywhere at the moment. Her eyes seem empty, her face blank, as she wanders down the hall aimlessly, fiddling with a lighter.

The question is out of her mouth in the next few seconds.

“Yukie, who is that?”

Yukie looks over at the girl, eyes filled with pity, before letting out a small sigh.

“Oh. That’s Noriko Nakagawa. She’s in our class, but barely ever comes to Japanese. I’ve known her since elementary school, most of my friends have, but she’s different now. Bad things happened to her, like her father- well, it’s not really my place to say. All you really need to know is that she’s not really anyone to fuss over. She prefers her own company.”

Mitsuko nods, stepping foot through the door, but not before she takes one last glance at Noriko before she disappears from sight, apparently having better things to do with her time.

—

Noriko is awoken by the sound of Yugo calling her name and jumping up and down on the grubby mattress they share, and while for once she was enjoying her sleep, it longer than usual and lacking nightmares, she can’t bring herself to be mad at him. He’s all she has left in the world, and she is putting every inch of her being into raising him right. Every day he wakes up with a smile on his face and without a worry in the world is a success, and she’s hoping for many more.

“Noriko, Noriko, Noriko! It’s my birthday today!” the words almost make her freeze, but she catches herself before he has the chance to figure out something is wrong. Inside, she hates herself in that moment. How the hell could she forget her little brother’s birthday? She plasters a smile on her face and hides her panic inside, and promises herself to somehow manage to make it as special as she possibly can.

“Happy birthday! You’re six now. You remember how much six is, right?” Noriko picks him up and holds him close, tickling him lightly. When he laughs, a smile, a real, genuine one, comes out. His laughter is the most precious thing in the world.

“A lot,” Yugo responds, and holds up six fingers, remembering her counting lessons. She smiles and claps for him, feeling happier than she’s felt in a long time as his smile grows.

She makes him a special breakfast and checks on her mother, still asleep, hungover, and probably cranky as hell, but she’s not going to ever let her ruin Yugo’s special day. She sets him up with his favourite television and a few of his toys before she gives him a kiss on the cheek, saying she must go, his smile disappearing, but starting to return when she states that she has to go get his surprise. She says she loves him, and he returns it before she goes. She remembers to leave out a tall glass of water, painkillers, and some breakfast for her mother, which will hopefully put her in a reasonable enough mood to not spoil Yugo’s day.

The girls don’t make an appearance, much to her relief, as Yugo still remains a secret, and she leaves the apartment block with ease. She’s skipping today, a usual occurrence. At least Yugo’s birthday and finding him the perfect present gives her a better excuse than just ‘I couldn’t be bothered.’ She looks through a few shops despite her pockets being empty. Food seems like a likely candidate for awhile, but she wants something that will last. He got new clothes awhile ago, and he’ll just grow out of them anyway, and toys won’t last forever either.

Nothing seems right. She walk around all day, well into the afternoon, almost about to give up. She has no idea what she’ll say when she comes back empty-handed, but at least the walk home will give her some time to think that over.

That is, until she sees the shop. It is small and from afar, its contents seem a mystery, but she’s draw to it, and decides to go inside and explore. The door creaks and a bell chimes as she enters, making her almost jump, but she regains her composure before she can make a fool of herself. The place smells like sawdust and paint and feels like _home_ , and she’s grateful that she came in instead of going straight home.

Wood carvings. That’s the next thing she noticed. The shop is filled with them. They’re absolutely beautiful. She walks through and examines them, taking her time, wanting to appreciate all the hard work and the beauty, a part of her wanting to stay here forever. Her eyes settle on a little bear, and she doesn’t know why, but it makes her smile so much when she picks it up and begins to examine it in further detail. Its eyes are painted on carefully, same with it’s mouth and nose, and a yellow ribbon has been wrapped gently around it. It’s perfect for Yugo.

The only problem, of course, is the lack of money She’s stolen before, dozens of times, from that first notebook at the gas station to classmates’ lunches from their bags during gym class, and it’s always left her with a bad feeling in her stomach, but she’s always come back and done it again when needed. Stealing from this shop, however, has left her with more guilt than normal, but the thought of Yugo’s face when he sees the bear and how much she wants to make the day special is enough to deposit it discreetly in her bag.

She carefully picks out the time to leave. The girl at the counter, face hidden by her hair, is scrawling something down in a notebook, oblivious to the world, so it seems like the perfect time to strike. Slowly, gripping the strap of her backpack tightly, she navigates her way through the store and to the door, but instead of the quick escape she was hoping for, the girl that was at the counter a few minutes ago blocks her path.

Oh god, it’s _the_ girl as well. The one in the funeral dress, the beautiful girl from the park. The universe always knows how to make things worse for her.

“I noticed someone dropped their wallet, and I think it’s yours. You can check to see if it is yours in the back,” the girl says, and Noriko is so focused on the beautiful mystery that is her eyes that she finds herself following. It’s only when they’re actually in the back of the store that she realises the girl actually took attention _away_ from her instead of causing a scene.

“So, the wallet?” Noriko is an idiot. She knows this. The girl gives her a look that is a glare away from meaning, ‘what, are you a dumbass?’ and wastes no time responding.

“We both know that there isn’t a wallet,” she frowns, then holds her hand out. “Come on. The goods. I know you have something that sure as hell isn’t yours.”

Noriko looks down at the ground for a moment, chewing on her lip. She’s never been good with confrontation, putting it down to sheer luck that she’d been able to get away with it all these times before, and this girl hasn’t believed her lies for a single minute, and this won’t suddenly change now. She still wonders why the girl didn’t call the police, but it’s not something she wants to question. It’s probably one of the only lucky things that has happened to her in quite awhile. When she looks up, willing herself to say something – _anything_ , the girl looks incredibly impatient, and she decides - even though she’ll probably just laugh at her, throw her out or finally call the police – to try and reason with her.

She digs into her bag first, trying to show that she is reasonable, and collects the stolen bear, holding it out. The girl takes it, doesn’t snatch it, and gently places it on the desk between them. Her touch feels almost electric, but she tells herself it is not the time to think about something like that.

“I’m sorry,” she starts with, and god, she sounds so pathetic, as if right here, she’s regressed back into that little girl on the first day at the apartment complex, but the girl doesn’t make any move. Her face reveals nothing. “Just… it… it’s my brother’s birthday. He’s only six… and things are hard and I forgot about it and I didn’t want to go home empty-handed. He deserves a good day so bad and I guess in the mean time, I forgot about well, the _illegal_ thing.”

The girl laughs slightly, and Noriko wishes there was a way she could keep that sound forever. It’s even better due to the fact that for once, someone isn’t laughing at _her._

“I take it you really care about him, seeing as you just ‘forgot’ about the illegal thing,” she responds. This time, Noriko actually laughs too despite how scared she is, and the smile the girl gives her is enough to make her want to die then and there.

“He… he’s all I have,” Noriko says, trying to pick her words carefully, wanting to say just enough to get herself out of here, but not enough for she herself to feel like she’s oversharing. Her past is her own to carry, and she doesn’t share out pieces of it like it’s candy. Especially not to someone who is a complete stranger.

The girl nods at Noriko, understanding her. She knows what it’s like to essentially only have one person left. It hurts and it’s lonely and all you want in the world is for them to be kept safe and happy. Finding this understanding in someone so quickly after she moved here – especially from a girl who just tried to _steal from their shop_ – was quite unexpected. As she looks at her, she can see something so clear in her eyes that she’s sure she isn’t bullshitting. No one’s eyes can lie like that.

Obviously, she wants to get out of here, and fast, but it isn’t because she wants to shake off her guilt and get away with the goods. She just wants to get home to her brother and give him his birthday present.

She has seen her eyes before, she starts to realise. Only last week, at school, on that first day. It’s Noriko Nakagawa, the ‘bad girl,’ the one who prefers her own company and she was advised to stay away from. After seeing her in the hall before going into class, she never saw her again yet. Not that she’d looked, of course… or would ever admit to looking around for her once or twice. She can see how one would get a bad idea about her, with the stealing thing, but there’s obviously more to her than what she allows the people at school to see.

“Here,” she looks at Noriko, holding the bear out. “Take it, okay. The kid deserves a good birthday. If my dad figure out it’s missing, I’ll make some excuse up that it’s lost or something.”

Noriko wills herself to move, and gently, she takes it from her hand. There’s the feeling of electricity again, like her hand is meant to be in hers for good. She tries to shake it off, thinking she’s just being stupid.

“T-thank you,” Noriko stutters, placing the bear carving in her bag with care. It’s obvious she’s genuinely grateful, but inside, she is confused. She manages to mask that from her face. “May I go home now?”

The girl nods at her, and awkwardly, Noriko heads to the door, almost tripping over her own boots once. Before she can get out the door and out of the shop’s back room, wanting to put the whole situation behind her (though she doubts the girl’s kindness that compliments her beauty will fade from her mind easily), the girl calls out to her, saying she has one more thing to say.

Her voice isn’t soft anymore. She is stone faced and her voice is deadly serious, and in that minute, Noriko fears that she had changed her mind. Or what if this was all a trick, and the police are actually waiting right outside for her? It makes sense, to her, really. What reason would anyone have to give _her_ of all people a random act of kindness?

“Don’t ever try to steal from our shop again,” the girl says. Noriko nods, and she silently promises she never will. It’s easy to try and promise herself that she’ll never steal again, but that’s a lie, just like the time she promised herself she’d try and quit smoking, and smoked a whole pack the next day after a fight with her mother. “Next time you probably won’t be so lucky.”

Noriko nods at her, mumbles another thank you, and leaves the shop as fast as she can, not looking back once.

—

Yukie and her friend group are nice enough to Mitsuko. They make room for her at their table each day, trade their food with her and try to include her in conversation before they get involved with one another and forget about her existence, but it doesn’t take her long, about a week and a half actually, to start feeling like the odd one out. They all have a strong bond, go back to elementary school, one of them told her once.

They know each other as well as they know themselves and know just what to say to each other and have all their inside jokes, the exact type of friend group that make memories together and see each other almost every day. There’s no room for a new person. Mitsuko can see that without anyone having to tell her it, so before she can outstay her welcome, she goes and finds somewhere else where she can sit on her own.

After lunch starts, she heads to the bathroom to reapply her make up, before going off to her pathetic little spot. She doesn’t exactly know why she bothers with it, bur she wakes up every morning day after day to do it anyway. She notices two girls standing by the entrance to the girls’ bathroom as she approaches, one of them looking rather nice, her hair dyed blonde and wearing a little more make up than Mitsuko is, attention on her compact mirror. The other, however, doesn’t look so nice, her lips turned into a scowl as she fiddles with a lighter the same shade of black as her spiky hair.

When she notices Mitsuko there, she steps forward and gives her a smirk.

All she does is give the spiky haired girl a sigh in response. She’s dealt with nasty people before and by now, it’s just gotten old, so she walks past her to head inside, hoping she will be ignored, just like she is in most other aspects of her school life. Before she can enter, the girl blocks her path.

“Wait wait wait, you can’t just go in there,” the girl frowns at her. “You have to pay up first.”

The other girl chips into the conversation by announcing the price to go in, an absolute bullshit amount of money, and slams her compact mirror shut.

“Excuse me?” Mitsuko gives her a frown, quickly getting impatient, but the girl doesn’t move. “I’m pretty sure there’s no way that we’d have to _pay_ to enter the school bathrooms. I can see you’re tyring to be funny, put one over on the new girl, but it isn’t going to work, okay?”

“Oh, you’re new? It makes sense that you wouldn’t know about our _strange_ rule here. Now, pay up, or fucking beat it,” she steps closer to her, getting right in her face, just about snarling. Mitsuko clenches her fist and tries to think of a good response – she’s not going to leave, or beg, she’s going to get in there, and she’s sure of it. This bitch will have to get out of here soon.

A soft voice cuts in before Mitsuko can form a response.

“Hirono, cut it out. Don’t you have something better to do with your time? I honestly thought that you were smarter than to pull a ‘you have to pay to go into the toilets’ scheme, if you can even call it that.”

Hirono gets out of Mitsuko’s face and turns to the owner of the voice. Noriko Nakagawa stands there, bag slung over her shoulder, looking absolutely exhausted. Mitsuko wonders why she’d care so much to step in, and she puts it down to the fact she and this girl probably hate each other. She couldn’t be trying to repay her for what she did for her back at the shop. She’s been avoiding her gaze ever since they caught sight of each other at school the next day, and took off like a rocket once Mitsuko told her she could go. She obviously wants to put this behind her.

“Nakagawa, shut the fuck up. What I do with my time is my business. I’d like to see you do something better, try to even actually _be_ hard for once instead of just acting like it. You’re a weak little bitch,” Hirono pokes her in the shoulder with a sharp fingernail, and Noriko steps back. Mitsuko would expect to see anger flare up in her eyes, or her to even push the girl to the ground and tell her she damn well knows what hard is, but she just looks tired.

“Hirono, just let her in, okay?” Noriko says, completely ignoring her remark.

The two talk back and forth for awhile, Hirono progressively throwing more scathing insults and Noriko deflecting them and refusing to comment, until finally, she seems to reach the end of her rope. She makes a fist and swings something at Hirono, and with wide eyes, she and the blonde girl stalk off down the hallway. Hirono comments that after school, she’s going to fuck her up, but Noriko barely seems to blink.

Mitsuko sees her shove her knife back in her pocket, and with wide eyes, Mitsuko enters the bathroom without a second glance back at the girl. She fishes for her eyeliner inside her bag as the door clatters shut, and she sees Noriko appear beside her in the mirror.

“We’re equal now,” Noriko says, finally acknowledging the day in the shop.

She looks at Mitsuko as she nods back at her, and thinks of how she would like to know this girl, this beautiful girl that took her attention from the day that she first saw her sitting on that bench in the damn funeral dress, but is it worth it? No one is loyal. The girls will turn on her at any moment when she messes up. Her mother despises her very existence. Her own dad would have rather hung himself than deal with them. Yukie and her friends abandoned her all those years ago, and look scared of her when they pass her in the halls. Why would she ever stick around, or give her the time of day? It would never, ever last.

Mitsuko finishes her eyeliner on her left eye and then catches a glimpse of Noriko in the mirror again. She shrugs a piece of hair out of her face, revealing a nasty bruise on her cheek. The sight of it makes her think of the first five years of her life again, and she can’t stop herself from saying something.

“Where did you get that?”

Noriko looks over at her, surprised someone would notice or ask, and then just shrugs and goes back to taking some concealer from her bag.

“It’s fine, really.”

Mitsuko nods, not knowing exactly what to do, and leaves the bathroom as soon as she’s finished with her make up. She is not too sure how she’s going to do it, but she’s determined to become friends with Noriko Nakagawa.

—

When class is let out that Friday afternoon, it sounds as if wild animals have been let loose in the hallway. It isn’t a pleasant sound, not like the laughter and cheers of joy for the weekend that usually fill the halls on the afternoon, but something that actually hurts for Mitsuko to look at. She looks over at Yukie, tagging along with her group on the way out of school, who shares a confused expression with her, before one of her other friends, a quiet girl with glasses, speaks, pointing down the halls to a crowd that is continuing to gather.

“Oh. My. God.”

The crowd parts just enough for a minute to see what is going on. Hirono throws Noriko onto the ground as if she is no more than a ragdoll, and jumps on top of her, slamming her fists into her face. Noriko screams, and can barely move, pinned to the floor by Hirono’s legs, and can’t fight back at all. The crowd cheers, but not really for either girl. They’re just letting out whoops, as if they’re happy to actually be witnessing a real junior high fight for the first time, like it’s a rite of passage.

Mitsuko should think more before she acts in this case, but all he can think of his the promise she made to herself so before anything rational comes to mind, she throws her bag on the ground and books with it, Yukie and her friends looking at her in sheer horror, and begins to manoeuvre her way through the crowd.

“STOP!” Her shout falls on deaf ears.

It takes awhile, a lot of pushing, shoving and kicking, but she gets into the front of the crowd. There’s now some blood on the floor. Noriko, face battered, manages to get up, and Hirono goes to swing at her again, but Mitsuko gets in between them, and takes the full force of the punch instead.

The entire hallway goes quiet at the sound of something cracking as she falls down onto the ground, blood streaming down her uniform. Hirono walks away after that, deeming the situation too pathetic to continue with, and she basically won anyway. Noriko looks over at her, and as best as she can, races away without another word, unable to believe that the _new girl,_ the girl she spends her nights writing poems about and thinks about way too much, just took one of _Hirono Shimizu’s_ punches for her, and most likely has a broken nose.

She doesn’t want to cry, but Mitsuko does anyway, as Yukie’s friends crowd around her, save for the one that is the nurse’s aide, who runs down the hallway as fast as she possibly can for help. Now that the show is over, the crowd are no longer interested, and have moved on.

—

Mitsuko returns to school two weeks after what the eighth grade has now dubbed _‘The Time New Girl Got Slugged In The Nose By Hirono Shimizu’_ or, for short, _‘The Great Punch Incident.’_ She is late. Her father drops her off and gives her a wave, still unable to believe his daughter took a whack in the face for a girl she barely knows – which he has asked her about numerous times during her break from school, trying to get out as much information as he can out of her, but to no avail. She’s keeping whatever is going on in her head a secret, which gives him even more of a hunch that she has a crush.

She watches him drive off and then gets ready to enter the building, when a lone figure sitting on a swing set catches her eye. Noriko Nakagawa, of course. Who else would usually be out of class when they are scheduled to have Japanese? With fifteen minutes left and her teachers none the wiser, she turns away from the building and decides to approach her instead.

“Hey,” Mitsuko sits down on the swing beside her, coughing slightly due to the smoke in the air. Noriko extinguishes her cigarette on her leg and throws it on the ground, mashing it into the grass with her boot.

“You always seem to be around, don’t you?” Noriko says, but her tone isn’t accusing or rude. Secretly, she’s grateful for her company. When Mitsuko blushes lightly and ducks her head down, she feels like she is going to absolutely melt.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Mitsuko laughs lightly and gives her a shrug, cheeks still pink. The air is quiet again, neither knowing what to say, and on instinct, as she always does when she’s nervous or things get too much to bear, Noriko lights a cigarette. She takes a long drag and then turns to Mitsuko.

“Why did you take that punch for me?”

The words catch Mitsuko off-track. She thought that they’d skirt around that forever, like they almost completely did about what happened in the shop, and she isn’t too sure if she has a proper answer. Everything seems to dumb, or too pathetic, or even too mushy. Why would Noriko Nakagawa, the girl who likes to be alone and is only holding on to save her brother from the life she’s living, ever feel anything for her?

“If I tell you my answer, in full and absolute honesty, may I ask you a question in return?” Mitsuko asks her. Noriko takes another drag, thinking for a minute, before giving her a nod. It isn’t like she has anything to lose.

“Go ahead,” Noriko says.

“It… it just felt like the right thing, okay? She… she… no offence, was destroying you. I had to do something. And it wasn’t because of the bathroom thing or the shop thing or either of us owing one another or any of that shit it’s just… I thought about what you said a lot that night after I let you go from the shop. About your brother. how much you care about him, how much you wanted to give him a good day, and how obvious it was that you want to give him a good day everyday. It’s obvious things aren’t too good for you. I can pick up on the signs, okay? But the fact that you’re going to all that effort to give him a good life, the best you fucking can if your situation it… it stuck with me. Not everyone has a person like that. I almost didn’t. So, I guess that’s my full, unabridged, fucking novel of an answer as to why I took that punch.”

Noriko laughs at first due to the ending of her ‘novel of an answer,’ but stops soon after. Every word of her answer resonates with her, and while she wills herself to not do it – _don’t fucking do it_ – tears fill her eyes. No one has ever noticed how much she cares for Yugo. Then again, she’s never let anyone except her mother see it, but even if they did, she doubted they’d have anything nice to say. But _Mitsuko,_ the new girl that’s obviously been through some stuff as a little kid, but has a future and a good life ahead of her and is too beautiful for this world and everyone in it, had those words to say to her, and it means more to her than she will ever let her know.

She knows that Mitsuko is going to ask her a question in a minute, and she’s prepared. She probably won’t give an answer like that. She’s good with words, but always shakes and stammers when it comes to saying them out loud. She has to learn how to get better at that, but before she does, she has something she needs to do.

The cigarette is no longer important. Like the first, it is extinguished and crushed on the ground. Before Mitsuko can ask her the mysterious question, she leans over and brushes her hair out of her face, cupping her cheek as gently as she can. Everything fits into place when their lips meet. For that perfect, sweet moment in time, when both their secret thoughts come to life, their problems are gone and it feels like every secret in the universe is solved.

They stay out there for a little longer, the question forgotten for the time being. When they go to their next class, it still does not reappear.

—

Things move fast, but somehow also slow at the same time after that. They sit together each lunchtime, Mitsuko sketching in her book and Noriko leaning against her shoulder, itching to write poetry, but deciding to keep that piece of her a secret for just a little longer. When the time is right, it will come out. She doesn’t smoke around Mitsuko, knowing how it makes her feel sick, and she wishes she could quit altogether, but she can’t bring herself to do that just yet. Maybe one day, if things keep going well.

They do. When they turn fifteen, after Noriko is introduced to Mitsuko’s father and they both meet Yugo for the first time, falling in love with his cheerfulness then and there, her father gives her a job. It’s hell trying to hide her new life from the girls, but they’ve found new girls to beat recently and new boys to fuck and new stuff to try, and she is starting to fade away from the foreground. She has stopped being the thing that fascinates them. The job makes her feel perfectly normal for once, she sits by Mitsuko and her father as they carve and help her until she gets the hang of it with serving customers. Yugo’s allowed to come along, which makes the arrangement even better.

It is after an evening of normalcy that Noriko returns to her old life with her brother in tow. Her mother is watching TV on the couch, a bottle to her lips, and in that moment, she is angrier than she has ever been in her life. She whispers to Yugo to go have a bath, and he obeys, and once she can hear the water running and the door lock, her sure he won’t hear her, she grabs the remote, turns off the TV, and snatches the bottle from her mother’s hand.

After that, the apartment explodes. Noriko ends what she was hoping, though deep down she knew it would fail, the confrontation with a forming black eye and being screamed at to get out. With Yugo in tow, she does just that, and runs through the rain until she reaches the place that really feels like home.

Mitsuko’s father is lovely. He gives them hot chocolate and tends to her wounds and reads Yugo a story to put him to bed to give her a break. He reminds her a bit of her own father, in some ways, which makes her start to think of her own. Mitsuko takes her hand as the awful image of his body comes to mind again, and she gratefully lets her lead her to her room.

The room is dark, the door closed, and despite how much her face hurts and how scared she is for tomorrow to come, Noriko feels somewhat at peace at the same time. Mitsuko kisses her forehead lightly and trails kisses down her face, her fingers running down her back, and she can’t help but smile. She was so lucky to get this. So, so, so lucky, and it’s one of the only lucky things that has ever happened to her.

As Mitsuko kisses her lips, an old memory comes to mind. She looks up at her after returning it, and her words fill the darkness.

“You still haven’t asked me that question you wanted to ask me that day, you know,” Noriko says, curious to find out what was on her mind that day, or maybe has even been on her mind all this time. Mitsuko looks at her, knowing exactly what day she is referring to, and thinks for a moment. It doesn’t take long to figure out what question she was going to ask that day.

“Why do you, or rather _did_ you, always skip Japanese class?”

Noriko takes a deep breath and moves closer to her girlfriend, smiling shyly when she puts her arm around her. It feels so stupid, so unbelievably stupid, but she wills herself to say the words anyway. Mitsuko will never judge her, she’s sure of it.

“It’s so dumb, I know, but the teacher…  I… just didn’t want her to talk to me. She’d come by my desk and read what I was writing for the class, the tell me to read it to the class, and at the end of class, she asked me to come see her. She told me I had a gift with my words… my poems. It… it made me angry. I should have been happy, but I don’t _want_ to be gifted. It makes it harder to try not to care about school. Why should I, anyway? It’s not like I’m going to get anywhere.”

Mitsuko holds her close and tells her she is worthy, that she has a future and that they’ll face it together, and her having a gift with words is amazing. She can do anything she sets her mind to, she’s sure of it. Noriko smiles at her and nods at her, staying quiet. She wants a future. She’s starting to realise that more and more. How can she be a good example for Yugo and get him a good future if she can’t get one herself.

She buries her head in the pillow, Mitsuko’s hands running through her hair, and tries to drift off to sleep. She tries to keep her head in the now, instead of worrying about all the thing that could go wrong tomorrow. When Mitsuko speaks, it’s easier to keep her head in the present.

“Can you remember any of your poems? I… I’m curious. I’d like to hear one, if that’s okay of course.”

Noriko knows exactly which poem to recite to her. It is the only one of hers she knows off by heart.

—

Noriko is doing what she thought she would never, ever do – studying for her high school entrance exams.

It was Mitsuko who pushed her to do it, and Yugo who inspired her to keep going. He’s asleep now, but she’s still awake, going through her textbook while also waiting for the door to open and her mother to come back. It has ben four months since she kicked her out of the house that night, and since then, they’ve pretty much gone the route of ignoring one another.

She quizzes herself and goes through flashcards, working as hard as she can, all the while switching her gaze every now and then to the clock above the television. Ten o’ clock goes by. Eleven o’ clock goes by. Twelve o’ clock goes by. As it is pushing one thirty, she debates going to bed, thinking that her mother will come home eventually, or maybe she’ll never come at all. She isn’t sure which scares her more.

Just as she decides to go through her notes one more time, giving her mother another good half hour to get through the door, their front door creaks open. Her mother looks like hell. She is drunk, but not _drunk drunk._ She is drunk enough to be angrier than usual and say horrible, horrible things, but not drunk enough to collapse down on the couch, bed or even the floor before she gets the chance to say them.

Her mother doesn’t seem to see her at first. She goes to the fridge and grabs a bottle of beer, before finally coming to her at the table. Noriko gets up, wondering if she should just go to bed before her mother’s drunken words have the chance to hit her full force, but she doesn’t get the chance. Her mother laughs at her, a long, cruel laugh, and she feels somewhat scared inside.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she throws one of her textbooks on the ground. “You know you’re not gonna be nothin’, don’t you? Just like your brother isn’t gonna be nothin’ either. Like your father was. Nothin’. The lot of them.”

Noriko steps back, gripping one of the cheap dining chairs tightly.

“You don’t mean that,” Noriko says, and she can feel all her anger rising up again. “I can be anything I want to be. So can Yugo. You, however, are going to be nothing. Since dad died, you’ve done NOTHING. I didn’t want to have to raise Yugo on my own. I didn’t want to end up like this. I didn’t want to do most of the things I’ve done… but you weren’t there. You didn’t give a shit about me. Or my brother. Or-“

“Be quiet!” her mother shouts. She swings something and Noriko tries to get out of the way, but the bottle hits her on the side of the head all the same. It is not deep enough to require stitches, but it still aches and blood runs down her neck, and all her anger dissolves, and she just starts to sob. Her mother staggers off to her room after that, mumbling ‘nothing,’ over and over, and for hours, too many hours, she sits there, until her blood and her tears dry.

Mitsuko’s words come into mind. Mitsuko. Beautiful, kind Mitsuko. She wouldn’t have gotten through this past year without her by a long shot. She has told her that she is wanted and worthy and is gonna have a future, and Yugo is gonna have one as well. She needs it to happen. Wants it to happen. She wants her words to come true more than she has ever wanted anything in her life, but for them to happen, she needs a course of action. And it is going to hurt so bad.

She enters her and Yugo’s room, and digs through the drawers. Everything they just cannot part with goes in the bag. Clothes. Her poem bag. The carved teddy bear. Toothbrushes. Toothpaste. Food. All the essentials, and a few sentimental things they can’t part with. She places the two bags in the corner of the room and then carefully crouches down, waking her brother with care.

“Yugo?” Noriko whispers to him. She places her hands on his shoulders, giving him a look that says, ‘please let me explain this all before you speak,’ and he seems to understand this. “We’re going to go on an adventure, okay? I know it’s really late and it’s dark outside, but I promise you, we’re going to have a good time, okay? We just need to be really quiet.”

Yugo nods at her and dresses quickly, asking her several times about their mother. Noriko answers his questions, but at the same time, never tells him the real truth. She is guilty, but she can’t say anything yet. Not until he is older, and will understand. This is for his future – _their_ future, and it’s all gonna be okay.

They slip out the door with their bags, down the stairs and out of the building, and carefully, Noriko navigates them to the third closest train station. She feels as if she only breathes again when she boards.

—

Mitsuko is worried when Noriko does not appear at school for a week. She does not come to the shop either, and she has no idea where she is. When she calls her phone, no one picks up. She is fucking terrified, and can barely sleep at night and hopes something hasn’t gone horribly, horribly wrong, but she forces herself to put on a smile and get through the day, deflecting her father’s questions, unable to bear telling him the truth.

When she is into the third week, she walks home about to completely break down ad sob and tell her father everything. Then, her phone rings. With shaking hands, she answers, despite it being an unknown number. It could be her.

She has to go away. For Yugo. For their future. Mitsuko made her realise this, and she wants them to have a new beginning. She misses her so, so much (she’s even crying in the telephone booth, she mumbles), but Mitsuko understands. You have to make sacrifices for people you love, and she admires her so much for trying to make a little kid’s life better, like her father did for her all those years ago.

Her life would be different if they stayed. She knows it would be the same for Noriko and Yugo.

Noriko promises she will stay in contact. This is not the end of them by any means. It is a new beginning. She tells her she loves her, and when she tells Mitsuko to please wait for her, she promises she will.

They’re going to see each other again one day. Hopefully, it’s gonna be sometime soon, but even if it isn’t, she isn’t going to ever forget her. She’ll always remember her poetry, her kisses and her smile. In the mean time while she is gone, she’ll spend her time trying to translate her into the perfect piece of art, and while it’s going to take awhile to get it right, it will definitely make the waiting easier.

This is not the end.


End file.
